Marketers chase attention. It’s the name of the game. The challenge is figuring out how to earn it when consumers can scroll past a brand in a fraction of a second.
As consumers become increasingly adept at tuning out traditional advertising, experiential marketing has become an increasingly valuable way for brands to break through. A strong activation gives people something a digital ad often cannot: a reason to stop, participate, and remember the brand after the moment has passed.
At The Pollack Group, we evaluate every activation idea through the same three lenses: Will people want to share it? Will it earn media coverage on its own merit? And will it keep generating content well after the event ends? The campaigns below all clear that bar, and they show what’s currently resonating with audiences who’ve grown numb to traditional advertising.
Consumers Don’t Just Want Products. They Want Stories They Can Be Part Of.
Many consumers, particularly Gen Z and younger Millennials, value experiences as much as possessions. They are far more likely to engage with a brand that gives them something worth talking about than one that simply serves them another digital ad.
Experiential marketing gives those audiences a role in the campaign. Whether it’s an immersive pop-up, an interactive installation, or a limited-edition collaboration, these moments can turn a brand message into something people can interact with and make their own.
Here are some brands that recently hit the mark.
Maybelline Launched Mascara and a Cultural Moment
To promote its new Lash Sensational Firework Mascara, the beauty brand unveiled giant mascara wands that seemed to brush London’s public transportation infrastructure. The oversized installations blurred the line between advertising and public art, creating a visual spectacle that immediately sparked conversation across TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, and traditional media.
There was nothing subtle about the execution, which was part of its appeal. The oversized wands took a familiar product and placed it somewhere completely unexpected, making the campaign difficult to ignore.
People photographed it, filmed it, and shared it, allowing the activation to travel far beyond the people who encountered it in person. Social sharing became a natural extension of the campaign instead of something the brand had to manufacture separately.
The product remained at the center, but the experience became the headline.
The Ninja Turtles Pizza Controller Turned Nostalgia into Engagement
Sometimes the experience is simply the product itself.
To celebrate the release of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed,” Xbox partnered with Paramount to create a limited-edition wireless controller featuring an integrated pizza-scent diffuser. Every controller represented one of the four turtles and released the unmistakable aroma of pepperoni pizza, a playful nod to one of the franchise’s most iconic running jokes.
Was the scented controller necessary? Not at all.
Was it memorable? Absolutely.
A pizza-scented controller is strange enough to make people stop and ask questions, which was exactly the point. It tapped into decades of nostalgia while giving fans something they had almost certainly never encountered before.
The controller instantly became newsworthy because it surprised people. Gaming outlets covered it. Mainstream media picked it up. Social media reactions ranged from curiosity to disbelief, giving the collaboration another layer of visibility.
The novelty gave people a reason to talk about the release, while the connection to pizza made the idea immediately recognizable to anyone familiar with the franchise.
The Best Marketing Gives People a Story Worth Sharing
The common thread between these campaigns isn’t their budgets. It’s their understanding of human behavior.
People naturally share things that make them laugh, surprise them, evoke nostalgia, or make them feel like they discovered something before everyone else. The most effective experiential campaigns tap into these emotions rather than simply promoting features or benefits.
Successful experiences don’t need to be extravagant either. A thoughtfully designed pop-up, an interactive product demonstration, a community event, or a creative retail activation can often outperform a much larger advertising buy because it gives consumers something increasingly valuable: a genuine reason to engage.
Experience Is Becoming the New Media Strategy
As marketing becomes more fragmented and consumer attention continues to shrink, experiential marketing is playing a larger role in integrated communications programs. A well-designed activation can generate far more than attendance or foot traffic. It can create material that travels across nearly every other channel.
The strongest activations now generate content for every channel simultaneously. They fuel earned media coverage, inspire influencer content, provide assets for owned social platforms, and create user-generated content that continues circulating long after the event ends.
That ripple effect is part of what makes experiential marketing so valuable. One well-executed idea can give PR teams, social teams, creators, and consumers something to work with, multiplying the reach of the original activation.
Looking Ahead
At The Pollack Group, that’s the lens we bring to experiential marketing: we don’t start by asking how to create a big moment; we start by asking how the moment we create can continue to work harder for the brand. The strongest ideas sit at the intersection of participation, shareability, and newsworthiness, giving people a reason to experience the brand firsthand, media a reason to cover it, and audiences a reason to keep the story moving long after the activation ends. That means thinking about PR, social, creators, and content from the beginning, not as amplification tactics added after the idea is already built. The goal isn’t simply to create an experience; it’s to create an experience designed to withstand and sustain.
As consumers become more selective about where they direct their attention, memorability matters. Brands have a better chance of earning that attention when they give people something genuinely interesting to encounter and participate in.
Whether it’s a mascara wand that appears to transform a city skyline or a pizza-scented gaming controller that turns nostalgia into the current moment, experiential marketing demonstrates a simple but powerful truth: consumers remember what they experience far longer than what they’re told.
As marketers plan their next campaigns, the question may no longer be, “How do we get consumers to see our message?”
Instead, it should be, “How do we get consumers to live our message?”
Thinking about your next activation? Let’s talk about how we can help you build one. Or check out this episode about experiential campaigns from our imPRessions podcast.
